Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a punching apparatus capable of performing punching on sheets by selectively mounting a plurality of punch dies, and a punching system, and more particularly to update of maintenance information of punch dies.
Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there has been known a punching apparatus that performs punching as post-processing on sheets conveyed from an image forming apparatus (see U.S. Pat. No. 7,627,282). Further, there has also been known a punching apparatus in which a plurality of punch dies different in the shape or number of punched holes can be selectively mounted and used. As for a punching apparatus of this type, it is preferable to perform periodical lubrication as a maintenance operation for maintaining the durability of each punch die, and therefore proper management of lubrication timing is required. For example, conventionally, counters that can be managed on a punch die basis are held in a punching apparatus (puncher) in which each punch die is selectively mounted, and are each used as a guide for determining lubrication timing and die exchange timing.
For the purpose of properly managing lubrication timing, a method is considered in which a nonvolatile memory is mounted on a punch die to store lubrication information indicative of a time at which lubrication was performed last time or the like. However, in order to update the lubrication information stored in the memory, it is required to mount the punch die in a punching apparatus. On the other hand, in general, lubrication work is performed in a state where the punch die is removed from a punching apparatus. Therefore, a user has to perform the following work process.
First, the user mounts the punch die in the punching apparatus and checks the lubrication information. Next, the user removes the punch die from the punching apparatus and performs lubrication work. Then, the user mounts the punch die in the punching apparatus again, and updates the lubrication information. As described above, the user cannot perform update work for updating the lubrication information without mounting the punch die, which makes the update work troublesome and requires a lot of work time.